House Democrats on Monday appeared to defend the FBI less than 24 hours before the bureau is scheduled to turn over a key document linking President Joe Biden to an alleged $5 million foreign national bribery scheme.
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) sent a letter to Wray last week revealing more specific terms for the bureau to find a particular FD-1023 form he demanded in a subpoena with a deadline that passed two weeks ago. Comer gave Wray until May 30 to turn over the record or could otherwise face contempt of Congress if he fails to comply with the subpoena.
Oversight Democrat Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D-MD) told Punchbowl News that his colleagues see Comer’s threats as “a ludicrously overblown response.”
“It just sounds preposterous to me that you will hold the FBI director in contempt over a tip sheet that they think someone submitted to the FBI,” Raskin told the outlet. “[Comer is] making a mountain out of something that is not even a molehill.”
Senior Virginia Democrat Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA) on the committee blamed the Republican’s move to investigate the bureau on former President Donald Trump.
“It’s part of the assault on the FBI that the Republicans have launched, fueled by Trump’s hatred of the FBI,” Connolly told the outlet.
Comer said whistleblower disclosures led him and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) to believe the Department of Justice (DOJ) and FBI have an unclassified FD-1023 form describing the alleged scheme involving the elder Biden, dating back to his time as vice president and a foreign national.
“These terms relate to the date on the FD-1023 form and its reference to the amount of money the foreign national allegedly paid to receive the desired policy outcome,” he wrote.
The newly revealed date lands on the calendar about two weeks after Ukrainian officials announced there had been a $5 million bribe aimed at ending an investigation into the founder of Burisma Holdings, the same Ukrainian gas company at which Biden’s son, Hunter, served on the board for several years.
The FBI, which says such a form is used to record claims from confidential human sources, has cautioned against disclosing unverified information from informants.
“The FBI’s mission is to protect the American people,” the FBI told reporters last week. “Releasing confidential source information could potentially jeopardize investigations and put lives at risk. The FBI remains committed to cooperating with Congress’s oversight requests on this matter and others as we always have.”
Comer insisted the oversight panel does not seek the identity of the confidential human source who may have provided the Biden-related allegations.
“Furthermore, there are reasonable accommodations that would alleviate the FBI’s concerns about exposing CHS (confidential human source) information, including appropriate redactions,” he wrote.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) told Breitbart News on Thursday Republican committee members view the FBI’s lack of cooperation differently.
“I think it’s clear and obvious that the DOJ, the FBI, Christopher Wray, Merrick Garland, and many others are protecting the Bidens,” Greene told the outlet. “It has direct evidence of Joe Biden himself getting paid from a foreign national for foreign policy decisions,” she said. “So, it’s a real pay-to-play scheme when Joe Biden was Vice President.”
Daniel Chaitin contributed to this report.